I remember once, during a several-hour transit wait, walking up and down the long anonymous concrete and glass halls of the main terminal at the Frankfurt airport. Since there was nothing else to do, I watched the people who were waiting in the empty concourse. All I saw was the monotony and boredom of waiting. […]

Karmeliter Kosher The “Mazzesinsel” is not really an island, more a mini-peninsula bulging rather than jutting into the Danube Canal from the north, part of Vienna’s 2nd District. Culturally, though, it was an island for several centuries, populated almost exclusively, if not entirely voluntarily, by the Jewish population of Vienna. It was, of course, also […]

Shopping, chocolate or diamonds… are a girl’s best friend. But a new player has entered the game: the makeup kit is the modern girl’s best friend. In the car, public restrooms, even in the U-Bahn, make sure that mask embracing your face doesn’t fade away. Because who would want to see what your real face […]

I have just come home from a mythical concert – the kind of concert you hear about the way you hear about unicorns – an evening of duets done by Barbara Bonney, Angelika Kirchschlager, and Helmut Deutsch at the Konzerthaus. This was a concert that made me forget that parts of Pakistan are increasingly ruled […]

Ode to Aida: To ignore her is to obsess over her, and the desire is growing daily. She’s everywhere, unavoidable and obvious, robed in pastel pink fabrics and a rosy demeanor. Enticing men, women and children to approach eagerly, she rarely disappoints, except when she isn’t there. Some days I pass her quickly, or snake […]

Walls designed to keep people in or out – whether they are in Berlin, Nicosia, Israel, or Korea – are always the product of fear: East German leaders’ fear of a mass exodus by their citizens seeking freedom and dignity; Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders’ fear of continued war; Israelis’ fear of terrorism; or the […]

On the eve of the Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, a new global agreement on how to curb carbon emissions and limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 remain huge. Many complex issues are on the negotiating table, and no agreement is yet in sight. Poor countries most threatened […]

To the Editor, Many thanks for your wonderful and lucid article on Edvard Munch, about whom I knew so little before. It gave me fascinating insight into how and why the exhibition was put together and why I should go to see it – which I am looking forward to doing in the coming days. […]

The year 2009 has been one of great change, taking place amidst even greater uncertainty. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the resilience of the post-Cold War security system in Europe is being tested. Longstanding conflicts remain unresolved and complex new challenges are emerging: Energy security, organized crime, terrorism, absolutism and fundamentalism, […]

THE VIENNA REVIEW is a publication of Vienna Review Publishing GmbH, Vienna, Austria, a journal of news, culture, lifestyle and opinion covering the life and times of Vienna, Austria and the wider Central Europen region. It is published in English.